


The Part of Me That Isn't Organic (And is about to die)

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Allyuen, Cybernetic Implant!Ezra, Gen, Trans!Ezra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 08:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nothing bad can happen to a 15-year old who hasn't seen starlight or sunlight and has a low battery, right? (Season 1)Mando'a title: Te kis'wa be ni ibac cuyir nayc veman (and cuyir Nusujii at ash'amur)Huttese title: Bu part of jeesh bettap besh oom-al ( an  ooout  nee choo )





	The Part of Me That Isn't Organic (And is about to die)

It's the only reason Ezra can do math so well, and has legible handwriting, after all these years without schooling.

 

It's the reason he can remember perfectly every detail of an op, every detail of a day.

 

The reason he knows that you're lying.

 

The computer in his brain is a blessing and a curse. 

 

For instance, memories. On the one hand, memories become videos to watch late at night through your eyes, rather than be limited to your mind's eye.

 

On the other hand, if you fell asleep like that, when you were startled awake by a Lasat, you'd see the paused Memory, and have to dismiss it before you could see reality.

 

It was good for many things, he could download school lessons from the HoloNet and watch them to keep up with schooling, he could hack into Imperial computers as well as Chopper could, he could record Kanan's lightsaber wielding lessons for future reference, he could calculate difficult mathematical equations, and translate over 300 dialects, almost as well as the bratty gold protocol droid they'd met on that mission with the disruptors. 

 

He could write novels in his head, and file them away. Take pictures and file them with video Memories. And sense lies.

 

He'd gotten the computer, a 22-87 RE-C cybernetic implant, at age 5, after a speeder accident that nearly killed him and ended up in him loosing a condsiderable amount of brain damage, and the crash had been entirely the Empire's fault. The Imps, wanting to make a good impression on the Lothilians, payed for an implant which saved his life.

 

The implant was placed above his left ear, and was wired to both his eyes and the rest of his brain. The implant itself was durasteel, about the length of a male adult human's middle finger and the width of that middle finger and the ring finger put together. It made a quiet whirring sound and ran on both a battery that was supposed to be replaced every ten years, and natural sunlight and other star light that was passed from the eyes to the implant. A hyperspace jump, oddly enough, could give him enough charge for three days if he was looking out a window at the time of the jump. 

 

If he hadn't seen light for a couple days, so far in his life it was no matter, he'd be a little short running only on the battery and some things wouldn't quite go through processing, and Memories, the HoloNet, and his calculator were turned off to save power for more important systems. It was annoying, but it worked.

 

But now he'd reached the end of his battery life, and he knew that the moment the battery clicked off, he'd be in big trouble. The Ghost was parked on an airless moon for the time being for a little holiday, and it was in an odd corner of space where the stars were too far away to see, and there were no suns. The HoloNet had clicked off Day 2, Memories and calculator had gone offline Day 3, and he'd lost the ability to fully comprehend speech on Day 5. He'd gotten the gist of what everyone was saying most of the time, the Spectres communicated quite a bit with hand motions and body language. The only big problems were that he couldn't understand Chopper at all now, it was just mindless beeps and vibrations, and he'd begun to be so clumsy that the kriffing astromech made a game of getting underfoot.

 

It was now Day 6, and his head hurt so. 

 

Kriffing.

 

Much. 

A side effect of low battery, the doctors had warned him long ago, was insanely large headaches and migraines, and sluggish or clumsy movements.

 

And that was why he'd finally decided to go talk to someone.

 

Zeb wouldn't be a good canidate, Sabine or Hera, maybe, but he didn't want Hera to unleash the Wrath of the Angry Twi'Lek on her, and Sabine would haul him straight to Hera, Chopper would be an excellent help but he couldn't understand binary right now, so it fell to Kanan.

 

His master was meditating in his room, and Ezra knocked slowly, wincing as the knocks seemed to pound his aching head.

 

"Come in," Kanan said.

 

And thus the padawan entered.

 

"Kriff, what happened to you, kid?" Kanan cringed, motioning for him to sit next to him on the bottom bunk.

 

"I have a cybernetic brain implant and my battery's about dead," Ezra announced quietly.

 

"Oh kriff, kid, what kind?!" Kanan asked, standing up.

 

"22-87 RE-C, I think. I think... no, I can't think right. Everything's muddled," he whispered, holding his aching head in his hands.

 

"Well, then, we need to tell Hera and get you to a medical centre. You stay here, don't get up, lay down if you can."

 

"Okay," Ezra said miserably, not moving, and certainly not caring anymore about the Wrath of the Angry Twi'Lek. 

 

Kanan ruffled his hair for a minute and then sought out Hera.

 

Even his head hurt slightly at the screeching of "He wHAT?!", he could only imagine how his padawan felt. 

 

Hera slipped on her hat and boots and Kanan later wouldn't have been able to tell you if the Twi'Lek simply sprinted at uncomprehendable speed to the cockpit or force-flew, whatever it was, it was fast.

 

"Chopper, calculate the jump to Allyuen!" She shouted, flicking some things on.

 

The astromech knew well that asking for answers before the jump would be fruitless with Spectre Two in this state, so he simply calculated the jump and they jumped off that little moon like a scared tooka.

 

Hera took the twenty minutes before contact to attempt to yell at the teenager in question, but the kid was hardly hearing her, let alone understanding at this point (even if he had been at 100% he wouldn't have been able to fully understand her anyway, with the amount of lekku and ancient forms of Ryl mixed with modern Ryl and Basic involved, his translator wouldn't be able to comprehend it.)

 

After figuring out yelling wasn't going to work on Ezra and not really having anyone else to yell at, she watched Zeb and Sabine arguing (Zeb had bumped into a wet painting on her wall at the hyperspace jump, a painting she'd been working on for weeks with oil paints, and now her hard work was drying on Zeb's fur) and at the same time researching Allyuenese medcenters until she found a good one near where the hyperspace lane took her that offered emergency care for ALL SPECIES and THOSE WITH CYBERNETIC IMPLANTS & PROSTHETICS! (all caps)

 

The website was kind of banthachit, hopefully the medical centre wasn't as bad.

 

-

 

"C'mon, Ezra, can't you just stand up?" Hera half-whined, attempting to tug the kid into a standing position.

 

Ezra mumbled something incomprehensible and didn't move.

 

Hera sighed and turned to Zeb. "You're carrying him."

 

"Why do I always have to carry 'im?!" Zeb full-whined.

 

"You're our muscle. It's what you do," Sabine pointed out, grinning.

 

Zeb sighed and chucked the kid over his shoulder. Ezra attempted to lift himself up but only succeeded in getting his head up.

 

"Lay down, Ezra," Kanan said, gently pushing his head back down.

 

Thus, Ezra was carried to the Phantom, and dropped carelessly on a seat, and then they flew to a ship garage near the med centre and Ezra was again slung over Zeb's shoulder.

 

Once there, the receptionist took one look at the nearly-unconscious boy and she whistled. 

 

Three nurses zoomed in.

 

"He has a brain implant, and the battery's low," Hera explained.

 

"What model, and where is it placed?" One nurse asked, while the other two got Ezra onto a stretcher.

 

"22-87 RE-C, he said," Kanan offered.

 

"Six, do you know where your implant is?" Sabine asked, leaning over Ezra, the Six in question.

 

Ezra apparently still had the wherewithal to mostly understand Sabine and put two fingers over his left ear.

 

"Left ear, got it. We can take him in for emergency surgery for the battery replacement and routine diagnostic," the nurse said, and after a bob of Hera's head, Ezra was whisked to the back.

 

-

 

"We ran a full system diagnostic, replaced a few parts, and some wires, and upgraded some systems. You can now download music off the HoloNet and it will play in your ears while you can still hear what's going on around you, which will be a bit confusing at first, but once you get used to it you'll be able to hear both without confusion. Your calculator was updated, Memories interface updated so you can watch Memories on a small blip in your eyesight instead of full eyesight, if you wish - and your memories are still private and have stayed in place - you now have augmented reality language learning system, which will show the names of objects around you in a language that you wish to learn that isn't supported by the implant. And, lastly, HoloNet browsing ability was updated. Now, you do need a new diagnostic and fresh battery every ten years as always, and the battery will last ten years, as the last one did. A couple weeks before it's due to run out again, get the surgery done, you're better off not using the whole thing than nearly loosing all power like this time. This battery can work on its own, without sun or starlight, without shutting down systems, but that is no excuse for not getting the surgery done on time. Understand, young man?"

 

"Yes, Doctor Quippa."

 

"Now, I will leave you with your your parents so they may yell at you, and then we can discharge you," she said, then briskly left the room. 

 

-

 

After the yell fest, Ezra was indeed discharged, and he spent the trip back to the Ghost talking to Sabine and Chopper about the software he had, and then it was back to normal..

 

until they decided to transmit a message to Lothal from an Imperial communications tower.


End file.
